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My ultimate question is if a male ball python can mate with a female california red-tail garter snake. And if so, how long is the gestation period?

Backstory-
In May, my husband caught our garter snake on his fishing pole. He cut the line and didn't even attempt to remove the hook because she swallowed it completely. We were sure she would either pass it or dissolve it so we brought her home, named her Charlotte, and have taken care of her since. That never happened and it ended up poking a hole in her side slowly. We thought she was going to die so we were just going to keep her and love her until she did. A couple of weeks ago it poked through so much that we were able to remove it through her skin, cleaned the wound, then we just let her be- she'd either live or die and we'd take care of her until she either died, or was healthy enough to be released back at the lake.

In the beginning of July we bought my husband a small ball python, Waffles. We do not know if Waffles is a male or female. Shortly after bringing Waffles home, we found them entwined. After this hook was removed, we went to take care of them and noticed a dead baby snake with the same markings as Charlotte. We removed it but still continue to find dead baby snakes, so far the count is 5 and they progressively look better and more developed. Now either Charlotte was pregnant before we brought her home and the hook made her unable to birth live babies, or Waffles has mated with her and the hook caused issues there too or maybe their genes aren't compatible. If my two snakes are capable of producing live young together, we need to separate them to prevent more mating. Can you help?

usually when someone interbreeds it something closley related like a corn snake and a king snake for instance.
your ball python will interbreed with several species of python but I wouldnt expect much luck from a ball python and a garter snake.there to distant in species for interbreeding.
plus like what was said before pythons lay eggs and garter snakes give birth to live young.
garter snakes can be interbred with other subspecies of garter snake and there are some snakes in the northeast that I think would interbreed with a garter snake but your in California.